What I find interesting is that there are 6 fairly major characters who appear in at least 11 episodes but are not identified by name in the show.

Well, not necessarily major...reminds me of Colm Meaney on ST:TNG, playing Transporter Chief on a recurring basis. One day, he saw a script with Transporter Chief O'Brien, and assumed he'd been replaced.

Decent episode last night. You knew that pipe implosion thing was going to fail. It looked so thrown together. Poor Asian guy He never had a chance once the secret police got hold of him.

I guess Liza has a pet name for Frank: 'Mark' - or maybe that's his middle name. I wish writers wouldn't do that because it's confusing, but it makes me wonder if these are actual people from history or fictional characters. Obviously, Oppenheimer was real. I know that much.

I never heard Liza call him Mark. Are you sure it wasn't just Olivia Williams accent making Frank sound like Mark? I watched with closed captioning on and I think I would have noticed if someone was being called Mark.

And as far as I know, Oppenheimer is the only real-life historical character.

So in the pilot, Winter's team was disbanded, but he saved the team at the last minute by turning in Liao.

In the second episode, Winter makes a deal that he'll prove the implosion theory in 24 hours, or they can disband his team. The experiment is a failure. So doesn't that mean Winter's team is again on the chopping block? Are they going to do this every episode? I think we know from the fact that the series is focused on Winter, and that implosion is the ultimate method used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that his design will win out. So it's already getting kind of tiresome to have them constantly jerking the viewers around making us wonder what will happen to Winter's team.

What happened in the last few minutes? My recording cut out with Liao at the camp gate and the phone ringing.

Remember earlier in the episode, Winter had overheard an MP asking to be transferred to where the real action is? That MP was on the other side of Liao's car, and when the main MP wasn't going to let Liao through, Liao reached for his gun, and the MP that wanted more action saw the gun and shot Liao in the head.

I never heard Liza call him Mark. Are you sure it wasn't just Olivia Williams accent making Frank sound like Mark? I watched with closed captioning on and I think I would have noticed if someone was being called Mark.

And as far as I know, Oppenheimer is the only real-life historical character.

So in the pilot, Winter's team was disbanded, but he saved the team at the last minute by turning in Liao.

In the second episode, Winter makes a deal that he'll prove the implosion theory in 24 hours, or they can disband his team. The experiment is a failure. So doesn't that mean Winter's team is again on the chopping block? Are they going to do this every episode? I think we know from the fact that the series is focused on Winter, and that implosion is the ultimate method used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that his design will win out. So it's already getting kind of tiresome to have them constantly jerking the viewers around making us wonder what will happen to Winter's team.

Actually only the Nagasaki bomb a plutonium implosion design (Fat Man); well that and the Trinity test bomb. The Hiroshima bomb was the uranium gun design (Little Boy). (And it was called Little Boy in comparison with the size the original calculations seemed to show was needed for a uranium bomb, aka Big Boy)

In actuality the Manhattan project, when presented with two or more ways to proceed, simply choose to take all the routes. That's why the ended up with a uranium and a plutonium designs, and why Oak Ridge had several uranium enrichment plants of wildly different design. (Now in practice some of them ended up combined with one plant acting as a first stage for another; but the original plan was to set up completely independent enrichment plants along wildly different approaches, so they didn't risk taking an approach that didn't pan out). And then Hanford built reactors to breed plutonium in case uranium proved impractical to enrich or the bomb design unexpectedly failed to pan out (though the plutonium design was higher risk)

So the drama about picking one design over another probably didn't play out much because they decided fairly early to try both. (And allowed a few of the scientists to work on Super, the hydrogen bomb design, in parallel as well)

I never heard Liza call him Mark. Are you sure it wasn't just Olivia Williams accent making Frank sound like Mark? I watched with closed captioning on and I think I would have noticed if someone was being called Mark.

I swore she said Mark, but turns out it was "Don't go and work" not "Don't go, Mark." You're right - it was the accent.

Manhattan is an American television series that premiered on July 27, 2014, on WGN America, and currently contracted for 13 episodes.[2] It is the second original series, after Salem, for the network. While historical figures are referenced, the show is not intended to maintain historical accuracy.[3]

WGN America is indeed separately programmed from WGN/9 in Chicago. There are some remnants of the connection, like local news and sports, but even that's been going away...they pulled the WGN Noon News from WGNA and some of the sports won't be coming back.

Tribune still owns WGN America. But it's more like the relationship between cable's TBS and its former over-air home, WTBS/17 Atlanta (now WPCH "Peachtree TV", entirely separate from the cable side.)

This show aired on the Tribune-owned over-air stations, including Fox affiliate WJW/8 here, just once as a teaser. (I think the over-air WGN/9 aired it that one week under this plan.)

On cable here, WGN America is still on an expanded basic/analog channel.

I don't know why the guy who stole the papers from a "secure" facility was so upset that he got in trouble for it. He should have just taken his way out.

Well it was certainly his own stupiditity for getting shot. For being a physicist he was very stupid. Why someone that just escaped would go to an exit gate of a highly secure facility with a gun lying on the seat is beyond stupid.

WGN America is indeed separately programmed from WGN/9 in Chicago. There are some remnants of the connection, like local news and sports, but even that's been going away...they pulled the WGN Noon News from WGNA and some of the sports won't be coming back.

Tribune still owns WGN America. But it's more like the relationship between cable's TBS and its former over-air home, WTBS/17 Atlanta (now WPCH "Peachtree TV", entirely separate from the cable side.)

This show aired on the Tribune-owned over-air stations, including Fox affiliate WJW/8 here, just once as a teaser. (I think the over-air WGN/9 aired it that one week under this plan.)

On cable here, WGN America is still on an expanded basic/analog channel.

Since they essentially split, I wonder why they still show the local Chicago news at all, AND, why they are still allowed to show Cubs/White Sox games out of market? I know that TBS gave up showing Braves games after awhile (perhaps as part of it's deal to get a national TV package?)

This past episode annoyed me. WAY too much "mourning" for Charlie. I don't know why, but I am much more interested in the wives' stories than the men. The men ALL seem like a bunch of jerks and are totally unlikable. I get that they are trying to show that they all have these huge egos and are willing to stab each other in the back at the drop of a hat. But there's not a likable one in the bunch.

Since they essentially split, I wonder why they still show the local Chicago news at all, AND, why they are still allowed to show Cubs/White Sox games out of market? I know that TBS gave up showing Braves games after awhile (perhaps as part of it's deal to get a national TV package?)

WGN as a SuperStation was very popular in the Midwest, and that's presumably why they keep at least a couple of newscasts around. Ditto for the sports.

The former seems almost silly anymore, with WGN America's efforts at original programming...and the fact that you can stream any WGN newscast live now.